


Won't Have A Soul For To Wake Up and Hold You

by sneaqui



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Depression, Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneaqui/pseuds/sneaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small fic about the beginning of Arthur and Cobb's partnership/friendship. Originally written for allnuthatchforest's Pan-Fandom Friendship Fanworks Fest on LJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Have A Soul For To Wake Up and Hold You

**Paris. Eighteen months prior to the Fischer job.**

Arthur expected Cobb to be talkative when drunk, a more boisterous version of his usual, sober self (opinionated, aggressive, slightly pedantic). After Cobb's third glass of wine, Arthur starts to leave longer pauses in between each of his sentences, anticipating the moment when Cobb will cut in and steer them off topic, begin pondering aloud some aspect of modern Parisian architecture in that flat, Kennedy-esque accent of his.

Instead, the man sitting across the table from him is silent. He stares dolefully at his half-eaten steak au poivre while Arthur runs down the list of possible job leads. His blue eyes dull and glazed over, as if he's looking at the world through cataracts. Aside from the occasional deep nod, Arthur can't even be sure that Cobb is absorbing anything that he's saying.

Arthur begins to go into detail about a job that would involve extracting from the (soon-to-be-ex) wife of a Goldman-Sachs CEO. "She served him with papers a couple months ago. She wants custody of the kids and half his assets. He's not objecting to the divorce or her taking the kids, but he is concerned about his net worth." Arthur pauses and looks up. Cobb simply nods slowly and continues pushing the whole black peppercorns on his plate this way and that with the tines of his fork.

Arthur clears his throat and continues. "He suspects that she was unfaithful at some point during their marriage. He's looking for a team to go into her mind and-"

"No!" Cobb bellows, his eyes suddenly alight. His fork falls from his hand and clatters onto his plate.

The other patrons in the restaurant stop talking and look over at them, fixing them with the unimpressed look that Arthur suspects the French reserve for shaming loud Americans.

Cobb lets out an angry breath through his nose. His hands begin to shake, jangling the gold watch on his left wrist. "No," he says lowly. "People shouldn't do that. You shouldn't break into the mind of someone you love."

"I think the whole point is that-"

"I said no."

Arthur nods and mentally checks the job off of his list.

~

Cobb stares passively out the window of their taxi as it drives them back to their hotel. Illuminated water droplets running down the glass and across his face. "She hated Paris," he says suddenly.

Arthur is startled out of his own thoughts. "She did? I thought she grew up here."

"She grew up in Neuilly. It's a suburb. Just outside the city limits."

"Didn't you guys spend a lot of time here?"

"We did. Mostly because I insisted. And because Miles worked here." Cobb's lips flatten out and turn up at the corners slightly. A sad attempt at a smile. "She used to warn people away. She'd say, 'You want charming, go to Bruges. You want culture, go to Istanbul. You want architecture, go to Athens. You want damp, noisy and crowded with assholes, go to Paris."

They both erupt into laughter. Arthur feels as though his mouth hasn't stretched this wide in ages. An atrophied muscle.

~

Arthur trails Cobb back to his room, clears his throat in order to get his attention. Cobb turns around, seemingly surprised to find another person in the hallway with him.

"I'll be just down the hall," Arthur ventures, "If you, you know, need anything."

Cobb nods brusquely. "I'm just gonna go to sleep."

Arthur doubts that. He knows that Cobb didn't sleep at all last night, because he didn't either. He walked up and down the Seine and chain smoked and thought about Eames until the small hours of the morning. When he walked by Cobb's room at four a.m., his lights were still on.

It's not Arthur's business how far Cobb sinks into his grief. He just hopes he still has a business partner at the end of this week. Cobb won't be much good to him if he offs himself before they can complete a successful job together.

Their partnership is beneficial to both of them. Like Cobb, there aren't a lot of people in the business these days that will go near Arthur. Not after what he did.

At three a.m. Arthur is doing the same thing he did the night before. He leans against the cement wall that surrounds the Seine and dials Eames' number again. He half expects it to have been disconnected in the past twenty-four hours. The last thing he expects is for Eames to have set up his voicemail.

He stares dumbly into the black water below him and doesn't say anything for a couple seconds after the tone beeps. At last, he clears his throat. "Hey... um... hey, Eames, it's me. Arthur. I- I just wanted to talk to you... I... fuck... I miss you. Call me back if you want. I'm using the phone with the Seattle area code. Okay... Okay. Bye." He hangs up and shoves his phone back into his pocket, his hand trembling violently. He thanks his own foresight for the fact that there's an unopened bottle of wine back in his room.

He pauses on his way past Cobb's door, unsure of what he's waiting for. He's about to continue down the hall when he hears a clatter and a small scream. He kicks the door open easily, runs inside to see Cobb's bedroom empty. A half-empty bottle of wine and a dismembered curtain rod at the foot of his bed.

He finds Cobb in the bathroom, lighting the curtains on fire in the bathtub.

"Cobb, what the fuck?!" Arthur yells and pushes past Cobb to throw on the water. Cobb crumbles backwards onto the tile floor. He crouches against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest, muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Arthur falls into the bidet as soon as the fire's out, his hair and his shoulders soaked.

He looks at Cobb, his bright blue eyes wide and absent. Half mad. Still clutching a corner of the white, diaphanous material that he tried to destroy.

Arthur thinks that maybe Cobb could use someone to watch his back right now. For that matter, so could Arthur.

He's not sure that desperation is a solid foundation on which to build any sort of relationship, but at this point he'll take what he can get. It would be nice if both of them made it through this with their sanity intact.

He sits down on the floor next to Cobb, curls an arm around his shoulder. "It's all right," he says, even though it's not. "It's all right."


End file.
